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Friday, October 27, 2006

Trillions Waiting For American People As Idiots In American Press Show True Colors.

23 Jul 2006

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR.That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse."--Mark Twain

By Greg Szymanski

A person might as well spit on the sidewalk, write the story with left over saliva and then go have a stiff drink because no one in the land of the spineless writers and the home of the gutless news broadcasters is ever going to alert the America people about the importance of the Leo Wanta story before it is too late.

Twain had it right when he called the American press ignorant and self-complacent. He had it right when he wrote an article entitled Advice to Youth, saying: “The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”

Wanta told the truth to the American people for the better part of 30 years, but the American press is poised and ready to kill it once and for all. In an effort to head them off, listen to this:

Wanta’s truth telling over the years resulted on June 12 with an agreement to repatriate 4.5 trillion to the American economy. The money now sits in a Bank of America account in Richmond, Va., illegally held up by the Federal Reserve Board so they and the idiots in the press have time to spin the story and concoct some gigantic lie about the origins of the trillions, which most of America will eventually believe anyway.

But in the absence of Twain’s insights, let’s set the record straight so everyone can understand the truth about the origins of the Wanta money before the barrage of lies permeates the landscape, taking over as truth.

The story begins with Wanta, a trusted servant of Ronald Reagan who amassed large amounts of cash at the end of the Cold War, trying to put more than 27.5 trillion back into the U.S. Treasury more than 14 years ago. However, he was back stabbed by Bush Sr. and Clinton, who wanted the booty for themselves and their rich friends.

Records, in fact, link Daddy Bush to taking at least 1 billion illegally, making him liable for criminal charges for depositing the money for his own private use in a Panama bank.

Further, banking records complied by investigators in Europe, with account names and numbers, show almost 750 billion pilfered for the Bush and Clinton’s crime family’s own use, including records showing Vince Foster, special White House counsel, was given 250 million two weeks prior to his untimely murder in a Washington D.C. park, the money never being accounted for or even mentioned.

The killings and the rip-offs didn’t stop with Foster, mounting like dead flies over the years and over the trillions of dollars made by Wanta and his group of financiers, including Wanta’s Chinese business partner killed 10 days after the pair met with Bush Sr. in a Singapore hotel when Bush was President.

Simply put, the whole sad story revolves around a good man like Wanta wanting to return the money to the American people and the Bush and Clinton gang wanting the trillions to remain offshore for their own personal use.

And for Wanta’s service to the people in this supposed God-faring country, the spineless idiots in the press ignored his story, allowing the gutless idiots in the government, like Bush and Clinton, to humiliate and jail him for the better part of the last 10 years, including a wretched stay in a Swiss dungeon for 133 days.

Further, he was nearly killed in jail several times by CIA operatives, trying to get him to cut a deal so crime bosses, Bush and Clinton, could get their dirty hands on even more of the money, money put into accounts by Wanta in order to return it to he people not the neo cons.

Wanta then got out of jail about a year and a half ago and since has been trying to recover what has been estimated to be more than 70 trillion dollars. He recently entered into a 4.5 trillion settlement being illegally stalled by the Fed, the details of which can be found in the Arctic Beacon archives.

He also said he is giving the Fed a July 31 deadline or he plans to go after the entire booty, a move the powers that be will never let happen since they have either stolen it or plan to continue using it illegally.

One thing for sure, though, the Wanta story neatly pins the tail on the real ‘donkey-criminals’ in this country. It also clearly reveals how the American people still remain a financial super power, the only problem being the people let a select few donkeys steal their money.

Further, the Wanta story reveals how the jackasses in the American press remain jackasses.

It also reveals how Wanta himself had to accept a smaller deal, fearing he’d get a bullet in his head if he didn’t.

But most importantly the whole story is about to reveal how Americans just don’t careanymore. It’s about to reveal how the Bush and Clinton gang can be caught red-handed stealing trillions from the American people and still live another day to rape, pillage and kill even more.

And finally it’s about to reveal how the human race has really one effective weapon and that weapon is laughter. And it will be interesting, as the Wanta story unfolds, to see who gets the last laugh this time.

Ingmar Lee ~ Hi Thomas, You say that you’re an “active environmentalist” so, given my concerns about a lack of environmentalist representation at your upcoming “BC Forum on Forest Economics and Policy” Symposium in Vancouver, and having never encountered you during my years of participation in BC’s environmental movement, I figured I had some research to do. But after an extensive Google search didn’t turn up anything, I wrote back to you to ask for something, anything to demonstrate your environmental activity.

My response embedded within your letter in Green

Well... no answer... and only 5 days till the Symposium, so I’ll just go with what I’ve got.

My research has shown that you are indeed a very busy man, obviously far too busy to answer questions from annoying gnats like me. Nevertheless, here’s what my research has turned up, and, er, well, if you are the “environmental representation” amongst the Logging lackey keynotes at your Symposium, then I stand by my original complaint:

Your interests are clearly with the logging and forest-processing industry, and not with the environment.

Here below, I unpack your letter

On 20/10/06, Thomas Maness wrote:

Hi Ingmar –

I received a copy of your email to the Landwatch Discussion List where you noted that there was not a single environmentalist on our list of speakers. You made a mistake in this observation: you overlooked my name. I have been an active environmentalist since 1968. I am the chair of the organizing committee and will be speaking at the conference.

As far as being an “active” environmentalist, I know hundreds of environmental activists across the province, and have participated in numerous forest protection efforts and environmental discussions for many years, but I’ve never heard of you, nor has anyone I’ve asked ever heard of you, or your colleague, Nicole Robinson. Perhaps you might have done something back in St. Louis where you were born and grew up, or in West Virginia, where you were educated, or even at the University of Weyerhaeus…,er ~Washington where you got your Ph.D. but there’s simply no Google record of anything that appears remotely environmental to me. I’ve searched your listed publications ( click here) but I can’t see anything remotely resembling environmental activism there.

Searching deeper into Google, I see that you are a “Principle Investigator” for the Sustainable Forest Management Network (SFMN). Here’s a list of your colleagues there:

I think if you come to hear what I have to say you might change your mind. You also missed the name of Nicole Robinson, a Forest Ecologist who is one of the most active environmentalists that I know.

Again, Nicole Robinson is unknown in BC’s environmental activist community. I attempted a Google search of her efforts, but if there’s anything there, it’s buried by other famous “Nicole Robinson” websites.

Nicole is organizing the event and she is working very hard to ensure that the public will get their say.

This is the “public” that will have to pay $75 to get in! Your admission fee for this partially tax-payer funded event ensures that none from the BC environmental activist community are likely to participate. BC’s environmental activist community is flat broke, and there are no generous industry subsidies flowing our way for such luxurious Gala events at opulent Vancouver hotels.

I want you to know that we in the Forum are working very hard to bring positive change to forest policy in British Columbia.

Well the fact that the “BC Forum on Forest Economics and Policy” was established at theUBC Forest Facultywith a generous grant from CANFOR(click here) immediately brings your Forum into disrepute. I won’t even get into the how the formerCANFOR CEO David Emerson just ripped off his own Logging industry fellows for a billion dollars, half of which has now been funnelled into the “Re-elect the Republicans” campaign currently going on in the USA. ( click here) I note that you have the swashbuckling TimberWest privateer,Hamish Kerr on your Keynote Speaker’s roster. ( Click here) to read Mr. Kerr’s draconian Neocon solutions for BC’s Public Forests. The fact that TimberWest, which is amongst the most ruthless and voracious forest destroyers in BC, is a major financier of this Symposium immediately brings it into disrepute.

As an environmentalist, I appreciate open mindedness, honesty and frank and open discussion. That’s what the BC Forum is about.

Further, in your capacity as Associate Professor of Forest Economics, Department of Forest Resources Management at UBC, you received a chunk of your $431,000 funding from, who else, Canadian Forest Products Ltd to build a computer model “that will provide a new way for the public to view proposed landscape changes and assess various tradeoffs so that researchers can more accurately determine public preferences toward forested areas” and will provide “a broad picture of how the public determines what it is prepared to trade-off in order to protect forest values they care about.” ( click here)

Searching further, we find that you are a Coordinator of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and are working to promote the use of the latest engineering technology in the automation of wood and wood fiber processing plants. Examples of this technology include robotics, scanning technology, computer applications, and expert systems, for example, to provide more effective and efficient wood processing and conversion systems....

It goes on, and on, but where’s the environmental activism?!

That’s why we have the panel discussion as the main part of the event. Vaughn Palmer will be involving the audience in the discussion, and everyone will have an opportunity to get their message across. Vaughn won’t be asking easy questions.

It would have been a challenge to find a more devoted Neocon logging industry lackey than Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer. If environment is big on your agenda, why not get the only CanWest Global reporter with Green credibility, which is Stephen Hume?

We are also exploring other ways to actively involve the public in this event, so there may be some surprises.

Well, 5 days to go, -you’d better surprise us fast.

It really is time for all of us to take an active role in shaping a new generation of environmentalists that face the realities of our world which is spinning out of control on so many fronts. Very little is accomplished by applying demeaning labels to people because they don’t share your beliefs, instead the task is to develop sound arguments that carry the day. If we can do this we can bring the mainstream into the fight.

“Shaping a New Generation of Environmentalists??!” Is that the “active role” you are taking down there at the UBC Logging department? I worked in the silviculture industry for 21 years all across BC, and I know the UBC logging department spawn which inspected our work. Straight out of school, they went to work for logging companies, and their job was to quantify the value of a patch of forest, to figure out how to rip it out as cheap as possible, and to throw some chemicals and vegetation back at the stumpfield that would get past the infill brush as fast as possible to get that cut-block off the books. That’s what they learned at UBC, and that’s what has justified the ongoing massacre of the forests.

I encourage you and everyone on your mailing list to attend the Forum event and get involved in forest policy. BC’s environmentalist community in the past has done a magnificent job of pointing out the environmental problems we face. It is now time to also deal with economic problems of forest dependent communities and the social ills and inequities that are coincident with the rapid depletion of our environmental capital.

I’m amazed that you can write this with a straight face, given the folks who will be speaking at your Symposium. I’m surprised you don’t have Patrick Moore himself at the podium.

The choices that we face in BC are not easy ones, in fact they are far too easy to oversimplify. Only by understanding a wide range of viewpoints can we develop workable solutions. If you participate in this event you may be assured of one thing. We at the BC Forum will be listening to you.

Best regards,

Thomas Maness

Associate Professor of Forest EconomicsDepartment of Forest Resources ManagementUniversity of British Columbia

With much less than 20% of this Earth’s final intact tracts of (wild, ancient, old-growth, pristine, primaeval -take your pick) forests remaining, the proper, ethical thing for all active environmentalists to be doing, is to work to protect everything that is left from the scourge of commercial extraction, NOW. Period. There are no “sound arguments” that can justify destroying more pristine wilderness anywhere, and no so-called certified logging practice is acceptable any more in such forests.

People like you, and the Logging-Lackey institutions you work for such as UBC, the University of Weyerhaeuser, and the most recently notorious Oregon State University Logging dept.will always continue to find new ways to scam so-called certified low impact logging in our ever-dwindling patches of intact forests. As the forest is exhausted, your efforts are a shot-gun blast further pocking the scattered final refugia tufts which remain.

Cheers, Ingmar

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David Shipway Unpacks the Online Preamble for the Forum

Quoting the online preamble for this latest forest tenure forum (http://www.bc-forum.org/symposium0611.htm ) as a fuse for more radical ideas in the next generation, here are mine, since it looks like all the usual culprits are still in control:

"The current tenure system in British Columbia has created an industry structure with a dependence on high harvest levels and a focus on being high volume, low cost producers in commodity products. However, forest sector conditions have changed substantially in the last 30 years. BC is no longer a global cost leader as timber quality and piece size decrease over time, environmental costs, once nonexistent, continue to rise, and labor rates cannot compete with those of developing countries. Southern hemisphere plantations are capable of growing high quality timber significantly faster and cheaper than we can, and investment capital is rapidly moving south. "

True, but right off the bat, the Forum needs to think outside this hopeless box! This whole trainwreck starts within the corporate "global competitiveness" paradigm of export trade, built on a manufactured "reality scam" which has been the primary driver and legitimizer of severely overcutting our forests and screwing the workers at the same time. Had we collectively realized that there simply was no "global competition" to the incredible quality of BC's coastal old growth timber, we might have slowed down a few decades ago and made sure that such wood quality that is now almost extinct was actually maintained with long-rotation selection-cutting forestry. Diminished as it is, there's still that opportunity to steer in that direction, instead of competing with Alabama etc. to produce short-rotation junkwood out of the best forest ecosystems in the world, but it requires we at least admit we've been ripped off, that Maximum Sustained Yield and the Liquidation-Conversion project in BC was the wrong way to "manage" forest ecology, and that a radical course correction is needed. Restoration of old-growth qualities will indeed take time and trans-generational commitment, but the alternative industrial scenario of "lawnmower forestry" will just dig the economic and cultural hole we are in much deeper.

At the same time, the public has become more aware that our public forestlands are more than simply an economic asset. They represent vital ecosystems that are both life-sustaining necessities and capital assets that should provide a flow of a variety of timber and non-timber goods and services well into the future.

The usual multi-use platitudes, but since there has been no substantial resolution to outstanding aboriginal land claims, it is a bit illegitimate for the sponsors to call them "our public forestlands" Excuse me, but what about those prior and feduciary tenure obligations?

Clearly the conditions that created the need for the tenure system in the first place have changed, and the system itself is no longer meeting its original stated objectives: "competitive advantages in world markets", "maximum continuity of employment in all phases of the industry" and "stable, settled and prosperous communities".

These colonial objectives have actually become contradictory in a corporate-dominated world of mobile capital, so corporations have simply deconstructed the last two objectives and run amok with the first. Any appurtenancy legislation we once had in BC to contain corporate greed and maintain the 2nd and 3rd objectives has been methodically shredded by successive BC governments, caving in to the old-growth-funded corporate timber lobby as they accepted big campaign donations.

The choices of how we manage this asset will have serious impacts on both current and future generations, and there is widespread public concern about the development of these management policies. Many stakeholders still feel that the answer to the problem is longer tenures or privatization.

The forests on this planet are not just an "asset", as already stated. Widespread public concern seems to have had little effect in liquidating them either, because the public has been methodically stripped of any legitimate power in denying corporate rule. There are answers, but many would find them "economically intolerable". Here we see yet again that tired old rant that the Commons is a "problem" and the solution is Enclosure. It's definitely not if they are given to the same self-serve corporations that have totally destroyed the social contract! A look at how the privatized forests of eastern Vancouver Island have been severely degraded by each new corporate owner proves that this is no panacea. Island Timberlands is hellishly busy liquidating everything MacBlo spared.

However, this must be balanced against the question of whether growing trees on BC forest lands, with the consequent long rotations, would be an investment with a positive net present value? If not, forestry as we know it is unlikely to generate substantial private investment on the land base.

A comment that is hopelessly stuck in short-term stock-market thinking mode! Someone will probably propose hemp plantations. Forests here only grow at about 2 or 3% per annum, so if you are a typical TIMO promising to deliver 10% to your investors, you must conduct a 500% overcut to keep them happy, or they will cut you. The bitter pill is that any real investment in raising the quality and values of our forests would have to be altruistic, a substantial gesture towards the welfare of those yet to be born.

This symposium is designed to bring this issue to forefront and get people working together to look at a new sustainable development strategy that once again ties forests to our inherent values, to the communities where we live, and to a diverse and globally competitive forest sector.

Throw these contradictory phrases together without radical rethinking of the "global competition" scam, and we are simply stuck in a hopeless trap again, along with our Siberian brothers and sisters.

No option should be off the table.

That's potentially good news.

Intensive forest management on high quality coastal sites may provide more stable employment on a smaller land base.

So far, this has meant using the best land to produce artificially-fertilized intensely knotty junkwood plantations for disposable wood products, producing more GHG's and running down the carbon sink in the soils. We desperately need a whole new model!

Small scale privatization on these sites may provide economic incentives for developing a new forest sector from the ashes of the coastal industry.

It could mean an inhabitory ecoforestry that provides communities of forest dwellers with stable modest incomes, but that will require radical tenure and land reform. Considering that we have a whole progression of younger generations that are doomed to being landless by the the current real-estate investment orgy, I would hope that the idea of Crown Woodlots that you can also live on would be considered legitimate tenure reform.

Timber management organizations could possibly manage BC forests for a wider range of values with attendant criteria and indicators, and provide the competitive log market called for in the Peel report. There are good examples from other jurisdictions. These and many other options must be considered and discussed.

In the face of all this mild-mannered talk of tenure diversity, the government over the last 10 years has pulled out all the stops to permit timber corporations to engineer a staggering consolidation and monopolization of ownership and tenure in BC. TIMO's like Timberwest and Brookfield's subsidiaries, who now basically own most of the private AND public forests of Vancouver Island, are part of the problem, not the solution! Their publicly-stated agenda on private forest lands is to liquidate timber assets and convert "suitable" land to real estate. After all, the government DID incinerate the Forest Land Reserve Act recently. Call me paranoid, but the fact that Timberwest is a primary sponsor of this Forum, maybe even helped write this contradictory preamble, sets up another talk-and-log/flog situation, since the chickens are hardly going to pull off a coup in tenure reform while the foxes are all around the room. But don't let that scare you away. The radical voices in this province need to be there, to be heard.

Since things are still sliding downhill in BC's forests, as well as in terms of transgenerational equity, we're at the point where a social revolution in land reform on the scale seen in some Southern hemisphere countries might now be carefully considered. Any real change on the ground seems inextricably tied to resolution of aboriginal land claims, and relocalization by establishing Community Forest Trusts to finally dismantle a defunct corporate-colonial tenure system.

George Bush must have been delighted to learn from a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that 56 percent of Americans still think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war, while six in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al-Qaida terrorist network — notions that have long since been thoroughly debunked by everyone from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to both of Bush's handpicked weapons inspectors, Charles Duelfer and David Kay.

Americans believe these lies not because they are stupid, but because they are good media consumers. Our media have become an echo chamber for those in power. Rather than challenge the fraudulent claims of the Bush administration, we've had a media acting as a conveyor belt for the government's lies.

As the Pentagon has learned, deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb. The explosive effect is amplified as a few pro-war, pro-government media moguls consolidate their grip over the majority of news outlets. Media monopoly and militarism go hand in hand.

When it comes to issues of war and peace, the results of having a compliant media are as deadly to our democracy as they are to our soldiers. Why do the corporate media cheerlead for war? One answer lies in the corporations themselves — the ones that own the major news outlets.

At the time of the first Persian Gulf War, CBS was owned by Westinghouse and NBC by General Electric. Two of the major nuclear weapons manufacturers owned two of the major networks. Westinghouse and GE made most of the parts for many of the weapons in the Persian Gulf War. It was no surprise, then, that much of the coverage on those networks looked like a military hardware show.

We see reporters in the cockpits of war planes, interviewing pilots about how it feels to be at the controls. We almost never see journalists at the target end, asking people huddled in their homes what it feels like not to know what the next moment will bring.

The media have a responsibility to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed. If the media would show for one week the same unsanitized images of war that the rest of the world sees, people in the U.S. would say no, that war is not an answer to conflict in the 21st century.But we don't see the real images of war. We don't need government censors, because we have corporations sanitizing the news. A study released last month by American University's School of Communications revealed that media outlets acknowledged they self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion out of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content.

The media organizations in charge of vetting our images of war have become fewer and bigger — and the news more uniform and gung ho. Six huge corporations now control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (FOX, HarperCollins, New York Post, Weekly Standard, TV Guide, DirecTV and 35 TV stations), General Electric (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal Pictures and 28 TV stations), Time Warner (AOL, CNN, Warner Bros., Time and its 130-plus magazines), Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, 10 TV and 72 radio stations), Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster and 183 U.S. radio stations), and Bertelsmann (Random House and its more than 120 imprints worldwide, and Gruner + Jahr and its more than 110 magazines in 10 countries).

As Phil Donahue, the former host of MSNBC's highest-rated show who was fired by the network in February 2003 for bringing on anti-war voices, told "Democracy Now!," "We have more [TV] outlets now, but most of them sell the Bowflex machine. The rest of them are Jesus and jewelry. There really isn't diversity in the media anymore. Dissent? Forget about it."

The lack of diversity in ownership helps explain the lack of diversity in the news. When George W. Bush first came to power, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, there was even less diversity of opinion on the airwaves. During the critical two weeks before and after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations where he made his case for war, FAIR found that just three out of 393 sources — fewer than 1 percent — were affiliated with anti-war activism.

Three out of almost 400 interviews. And that was on the "respectable" evening news shows of CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.

These are not media that are serving a democratic society, where a diversity of views is vital to shaping informed opinions. This is a well-oiled propaganda machine that is repackaging government spin and passing it off as journalism.

For the media moguls, even this parody of political "diversity" is too much. So as Gen. Colin Powell led the war on Iraq, his son, Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led the war on diversity of voices at home.

In the spring of 2003, Michael Powell tried to hand over the airwaves and newspapers to fewer and fewer tycoons by further loosening restrictions on how many media outlets a single company could own. Powell tried to scrap 30-year-old rules that limited the reach of any television network to no more than 35 percent of the national population, and limits on cross-ownership that, for example, prevented newspapers from buying television or radio stations in the same city. The new rules would have allowed a broadcast network to buy up stations that together reached 45 percent of the national population.

The attack on the existing media-ownership rules came from predictable corners: Both Viacom, which owns CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's conservative FOX News Channel were already in violation, and would be forced to sell off stations to come into compliance with the 35-percent limit. The rule change would enable Murdoch to control the airwaves of entire cities. That would be fine with Bush and the Powells, since Murdoch is one of their biggest boosters.

Murdoch declared in February 2003 that George W. Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2 to 1." Murdoch leaves nothing to chance: His FOX News Channel is doing all it can to help.

It looked like Powell, backed by the Bush White House and with Republican control of Congress, would have no trouble ramming through these historic rule changes. The broadcast industry left nothing to chance: Between 1998 and 2004, broadcasters spent a boggling $249 million lobbying the federal government, including spending $27 million on federal candidates and lawmakers.

This would normally be called bribery. At the FCC, it's just business as usual.

You would think that FCC deregulation, affecting millions of Americans, would get major play in the media. But the national networks knew that if people found out about how one media mogul could own nearly everything you watch, hear and read in a city, there would be revolt. The solution for them was simple: They just didn't cover the issue for a year. The only thing the networks did was to join together — and you thought they were competitors? — in a brief filed with the FCC to call for media deregulation.

And then, something remarkable happened: Media activists — an unlikely coalition of liberals and conservatives — mounted a national campaign to defeat Powell and stop the corporate sell-off. The FCC received 2 million letters and e-mails, most of them opposing the sell-off. The Prometheus Radio Project, a grass-roots media activism group, sued to stop the sale of our airwaves, and won in federal court last June. These are hopeful signals that the days of backroom deals by media titans are numbered.

Powell announced his resignation as chairman of the FCC in January. Arguably the worst FCC chairman in history, Powell led with singular zeal the effort to auction off the public airwaves to the highest corporate bidder. In so doing, he did us all a favor: For a brief moment, he pulled back the covers on the incestuous world of media ownership to expose the corruption and rot for all to see.

Kevin Martin, Bush's newly appointed FCC chairman, will, according to an FCC insider, be even worse than Powell. Leading conservative and right-wing religious groups have been quietly lobbying the White House for Martin to chair the FCC. Martin voted with Powell on key regulations favoring media consolidation, and in addition has been a self-appointed indecency czar. The indecency furor conveniently grabs headlines and pushes for the regulation of content, while Martin and the media moguls plan sweetheart deregulation deals to achieve piecemeal what they couldn't push through all at once. This is the true indecency afflicting media today.

The major media conglomerates are among the most powerful on the planet. The onrush of digital convergence and broadband access in the workplaces and homes of America will radically change the way we work, play and communicate. Fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) from the regional Bells, Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony, bundled services from cable companies, and increased capacity in satellite and wireless technologies will transform the platforms on which we communicate.

Who owns these platforms, what is delivered over them and, fundamentally, in whose interest they work are critical issues before us now. Given the wealth of the media companies and their shrewd donations into our political process, the advocates for the public interest are in far too short a supply.

A blow against media ownership consolidation — now or in the future — will have far-reaching implications, as critical information gains exposure to a caring, active public. Instead of fake reality TV, maybe the media will start to cover the reality of people struggling to get by and of the victories that happen every day in our communities, and in strife-torn regions around the globe.

When people get information, they are empowered. We have to ensure that the airwaves are open for more of that. Our motto at "Democracy Now!" is to break the sound barrier. We call ourselves the exception to the rulers. We believe all media should be.

Amy Goodman, host of the award-winning radio and TV news show "Democracy Now!," and her brother David Goodman, a contributing writer for Mother Jones, are authors of "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them," which was just released in paperback by Hyperion.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western SubscribersOctober 21, 2006

Russian Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that final steps towards afull Military Dictatorship of the United States have been taken with the USArmy announcing USARNORTH has now reached 'full operational capacity' and isnow ready to:

"Execute homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions", and "Conduct the Army-to-Army portion of the theater cooperation missionwith Canada and Mexico".

According to these reports, the first of the USANORTH plans for the totalmilitary takeover of the United States, from its few remaining civilianoverseers, rest with a new series of draconian laws recently enacted bytheir top Military Leaders and which, among other things, suspends the rightof habeas corpus for Americans, and which the American Military Leaders haveordered their courts to disallow, and as we can read as reported by theWashington Post News Service in their article titled "Court Told It LacksPower in Detainee Cases", and which says:

"Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this weekthat authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration hasformally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer hasjurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed byinmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Beyond those already imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, the lawapplies to all non-U.S. citizens, including permanent U.S. residents. Habeascorpus, a Latin term meaning "you have the body," is one of the oldestprinciples of English and American law. It requires the government to show alegal basis for holding a prisoner."

Not being fully explained to the American people, however, are that thesenew draconian laws do in fact have a direct impact upon each of them, and asexplained by an American dissident group called The Future of FreedomFoundation, and which in their article titled "Jose Padilla and the MilitaryCommissions Act", states:

"Anyone who hoped that U.S. military detention of Americans accused ofterrorism expired with the transfer of American citizen Jose Padilla frommilitary custody to Justice Department custody have seen their hopes dashedby the Military Commissions Act that the president signed into lawyesterday. Although the act limits to foreign citizens the use of militarytribunals and the denial of habeas corpus, any person, including Americancitizens, can still be labeled and treated as an "unlawful enemy combatant"in the war on terrorism.

What does that mean for the American people? It means the same thing it didfor Jose Padilla. You'll recall that Padilla was arrested in Chicago forterrorism and transferred to military custody, where, according to Padilla,he was tortured and involuntarily injected with drugs.

The government's position is that since the entire world is a battlefield inwhich the war on terrorism is being waged, U.S. officials now have the powerto arrest any American suspected of terrorism, place him in militarycustody, and subject him to the same "unlawful enemy combatant" treatmentthat Padilla received, until the war on terrorism has finally been won, nomatter how long that takes."

More ominously for the American people is their future culpability in theseactions being done in their name by their Military Leaders, and asarticulated by one of the United States most celebrated reporters, HelenThomas, and who has said about these horrific new laws:

"President Bush on Tuesday signed the law that legalizes theadministration's shameful treatment of detainees suspected of terrorism. Thesame measure also empowers the president to define torture. It's a sadlegacy for America and its already-tarnished world image.

The far-reaching legislation gives Bush the right to decide what constitutestorture. The president has often said "we do not torture," despite evidenceto the contrary - and photographs from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison aswell. The president also can set guidelines for interrogation of prisoners.White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to say whether "waterboarding" - inwhich detainees are made to feel they are drowning - would be permissible.

Under the new law, the president also has extraordinary powers to designatewho is an illegal enemy combatant, which potentially subjects U.S. citizensand foreigners to indefinite detention with no power to appeal. Bush is alsoallowed to interpret the Geneva Conventions on Humane Treatment of Prisonersof War.

One of the reasons Bush sought a green light from the lawmakers is "to haveCongress stand with him in the dock," Malinowski added. The militarycommissions act is law. And all Americans will be tainted by it."

Helen Thomas' reference to American Military Leaders standing in the 'dock',which means standing trial for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, ringsever truer with the decision of the International Committee of the Red Crossissuing only its second ever in history "concern" regarding the actions of awarring Nation [the first "concern" issued by the ICRC was in 1944 over theNazi German treatment of concentration camp detainees], and which we canread as reported by the SwissInfo News Service in their article titled "ICRC"concerned" over US anti-terrorism law", and which says:

"The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed concern onThursday at the United States' tough new anti-terrorism law. The presidentof Swiss-run humanitarian body, Jakob Kellenberger, said that there werequestions over its compliance with the Geneva Conventions on the conduct ofwar."

To the second part of the USANORTH plan for the unsuspecting Americanpeople, Conduct the Army-to-Army portion of the theater cooperation missionwith Canada and Mexico", we can read from the Council on Foreign Relationsreport that first outlined the merger of the independent Nations of theUnited States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union, and whichsays:

"Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in association with theCanadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de AsuntosInternacionales.

North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terroristand criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad,and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, atrinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America hasdeveloped a roadmap to promote North American security and advance thewell-being of citizens of all three countries.

When the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States met in Texasrecently they underscored the deep ties and shared principles of the threecountries. The Council-sponsored Task Force applauds the announced "Securityand Prosperity Partnership of North America," but proposes a more ambitiousvision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how toachieve it."

Also not being understood by the American people are how their youngchildren are currently being trained to be administrators of this NorthAmerican Union, and as we can read as reported by the World Net Daily NewsService in their article titled "N[orth] American students trained for'merger', and which says:

"In another example of the way the three nations of North America are beingdrawn into a federation, or "merger," students from 10 universities in theU.S., Mexico and Canada are participating annually in a simulated "modelParliament."

Under the sponsorship of the Canadian based North American Forum onIntegration, students met in the Mexican Senate for five days in May in anevent dubbed "Triumvirate," with organizers declaring "A North AmericanParliament is born." A similar event took place in the Canadian Senate in2005.

The intentions of organizers are clear. "The creation of a North Americanparliament, such as the one being simulated by these young people, should beconsidered," explained Raymond Chretien, the president of the Triumvirateand the former Canadian ambassador to both Mexico and the U.S. Participantsdiscuss draft bills on trade corridors, immigration, provisions of the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement and produce a daily newspaper called "TheTrilatHerald."

To those dwindling numbers of Americans aware of the total destruction oftheir Nation, and way of life, ever harsher measures to destroy all dissentwere outlined to them this past week by their Military Leaders, and as wecan read as reported by these various sources:

As reported by the Reuters News Service in their October 17th article titled"Web could be terror training camp: Chertoff", and which says, "Disaffectedpeople living in the United States may develop radical ideologies andpotentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the nextmajor U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary MichaelChertoff said on Monday. "We now have a capability of someone to radicalizethemselves over the Internet," Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meetingof International Association of the Chiefs of Police."

As reported by the CNET News Service in their October 17th article titled"FBI director wants ISPs to track users", and which says, "FBI DirectorRobert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers to recordtheir customers' online activities, a move that anticipates a fierce debateover privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year."

As reported by an American dissident writer, Chris Floyd, in his October17th report titled "Sentimental Education: Academia Signs Up for TrackingDown Dissent", and which says, "Why is the United States government spendingmillions of dollars to track down critics of George W. Bush in the press?And why have major American universities agreed to put this technology oftyranny into the state's hands?

The Bush administration already has spyware devouring reams of privateinformation in every direction. It is now paying top universities millionsof dollars to refine this data into actionable intelligence - including theautomated discernment and tracking of dissent against administrationpolicies and criticism of the president. Bush has openly declared that hehas no intention of obeying privacy laws - or any other laws safeguardingthe Constitutional rights of American citizens - if he doesn't want to."

More interesting, perhaps, than the simultaneous flooding of the Americanmedia this past week with 'frightening' reports on the 'dangers' of theInternet by the US Military Leaders, was the sensationalist reportingrevolving around an American man posting on the Internet a hoax threat, andwhich has resulted in his arrest, and as we can read as reported by the KWTXNews Service in their article titled "Store Clerk Arrested In Stadium ThreatHoax", and which says:

"A Wisconsin grocery store clerk is under arrest on charges he's behind thehoax that claimed there would be dirty bomb attacks during this weekend'sNFL games. Jake Brahm surrendered to federal authorities Friday morning, andwas due in a Milwaukee court later in the day. The US Attorney in Newark,N.J., says Brahm is charged in a sealed criminal complaint."

Russian Intelligence reports on this American 'hoax incident', in ouropinion, have correctly stated that these events are a false flag operationintended to bring the ever growing American dissident community to heel by'reminding' them that even a 20-year-old store clerk is not beyond theirreach. We can rightly imagine the fear these events have caused among theAmerican dissidents as what they are experiencing now we have lived with ourentire lives.

To the greater of these issues, though, remains the fact that the totaldestruction of America today has long been planned, and is even now in itsfinal stages. To the many warning signs put before these American peoplethere have also been many, and, perhaps, none more chilling then a simpleletter sent from a former US Congressman, Bill Hefner, to a constituent ofhis in North Carolina written in 1997, and which says:

"Enclosed is the information you requested pertaining to the Army's policyand guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor program and civilianprison camps on Army installations.

This information has not yet been published (it is currently at theprinters), however, it has been funded, staffed, and does reflect currentArmy policy. I hope you find this information useful."

As the storm clouds continue to gather over these once great Americanpeople, one cannot wonder at their continued insistence to not look up, seewhat is coming, and prepare.